Welcome

Social capital increasingly provides the greatest and most sustainable source of competitive advantage that is available to a business. It is a key source of created value, which enables organisations to set new, more stretching and potentially different business goals.

So how do you manage people and the organisational environment in a way that accumulates social capital and will lead on to this success?

I’m going to try to find out. Care to join me?

Your Host

I help organisations gain competitive advantage through the creation of human and social capital supported by effective leadership, HR and management practices, OD interventions, and the use of web 2.0 / social media tools etc.

I have worked for 20 years in Engineering, IT, change management and HR (including as an HR Director).

I am based in the UK but I have a global focus to my role and I spend a lot of time in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

I work with business leaders, HR departments and others to raise the level of their ambition to have more impact in their businesses. This often involves developing innovative, value creating people, team and organisation management / development strategies.
I also design and implement strategic people management programmes, for example in talent management and organisation development.

And I help increase value in individual HR processes and technologies eg performance management, the use of social media etc.

I also help business leaders and HR teams develop their own strategic capabilities.

Saturday, 31 January 2009

A few of the world's leaders (the auditorium doesn't look particularly packed) have gathered in Davos this morning to learn more about the World Economic Forum's new Sharepoint based social networking system, WELCOM.

It's been designed to help the participants connect and collaborate after the event and to help them give the world 'a fundamental reboot'.

Saturday, 3 January 2009

You'll have seen many sets of predictions for the new year / following decade. I'm not going to make any others, although I still think work will develop in the direction described by this, and my HCM blog.

Thursday, 18 December 2008

Human Resources magazine / Hirescores report that more than eight out of 10 (82%) of office workers lie for their manager on a daily basis, saying that their managers are on the phone or away from their desk, to avoid unwanted conversations.

Friday, 12 December 2008

The Demos report, Network Citizens that I referred to in my last post on Cisco notes that as well as considerable benefits (including creativity, innovation and freedom, meritocracy, openness and democracy), organisational networks can lead to certain downsides ('the dark side'), in that they can:

Sunday, 30 November 2008

Earlier this month, Melcrum's blog referred to a recent report, Network Citizens, written by Peter Bradwell and my ex-Penna colleague, Richard Reeves, now at Demos, which argues that although today’s difficult business environment tends to create an instinctive reaction from management to “batten down the hatches" we actually need to steer away from traditional command and control hierarchies - where productivity is closely monitored and measured - and towards freedom and flexibility based on responsible, prosperous social networks.

Li and Bernoff believe that the evolution of social computing is creating a permanent, long-lasting shift in the way the world works, in which people use technologies to get things from each other instead of from companies.